Exiled Queen
By Lisa McCourt Hollar

“They call her princess,” Kale snorted. I looked away from the old woman, trying not to stare but unable to help myself as my eyes drifted back to her. She was filthy and I could smell her stench from across the street; a combination of shit and body odor. I doubted she’d bathed …ever.

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

Kale snorted again and I winced at the harsh tone of his voice. “Like what? She’s been in and out of the psych ward…I personally hauled her in once myself. The bitch spit on me. She’s crazy, but not so crazy that they can keep her there.

“Still…” My voice trailed off as I looked the woman over. Through the stench and the dirty clothes, there was a human being under there, one who once had to have been somebody’s love. Her dress was pink…I think, with lots of frills. It looked like it once had been a prom dress. Maybe she’d found it in the garbage, but I doubted that’s where she’d found the tiara on her head. It looked expensive. I was surprised she hadn’t been mugged for it. The words exiled Queen, entered my mind. “What about the homeless shelters?”

“Again, they’ve tried. She won’t stay…and they won’t take her anymore.”

The woman stood, adjusted her dress and scratched at her crotch, all the while carrying on a heated conversation with someone I couldn’t see. She started screaming, “You give it back to me! It’s mine you whore!”

“Sheesh,” I said, when she reached out and slapped thin air. “Are you sure she’s not crazy?”

“Just barely,” Kale said. “Let’s go.” He took my arm and started to guide me away from the park. It was only my first day on the beat and Kale was anxious to show me the rest of the rout. I looked back at the old woman. She was staring at me, anger raging in her eyes. When she saw me staring back, she flipped me the bird, then took her cart and moved off in the opposite direction.

The end of my shift finally came and I drug my butt home, shuffling my feet up the stairs to my apartment. It wasn’t much, but it was mine. Kicking off my shoes I fell backwards onto the sofa, my hands reaching for the remote. A huge history buff, I flipped the channel and watched a program on an obsolete royal family. I missed what country they ruled, but the family feud and backstabbing as each member made a grab for control, was entertaining. Suddenly a picture appeared on screen of a young princess. She had disappeared the day before she was to become queen. That was over thirty years ago. Instead, her cousin took the royal crown.

Sleepily, I blinked my eyes, wondering why the pink dress and tiara looked familiar.

“Give it back to me, It’s mine you whore!”

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed, reaching for my phone.

Word Count: 496
@jezri1

They call her Princess and she rules her kingdom well. She is royalty and enjoys all that reigning entails. Oh you want to know about the Princess?

She loves her servants to groom her hair, but she hates baths and prefers quick showers if in water at all. She is demanding but well loved by all her people. She bathes her dependents in adoration while demanding her wants and her needs. She makes sure her subjects are up at the crack of dawn so they can be laborious. With a flex of her eyebrow she silently makes her wishes known; other times she makes her wishes known with a variety of vocalizations that her vassals understand all too well.
The princess is a solitary hunter most productive and shares her bounty with her citizens. And yet her subjects dare not be late with her food, lest she retaliates and they find themselves not in her favour. Her sense of smell is acute and she shares this with her. Princess loves the outdoors the sun most of all but hates the winter preferring to hibernate and do only the minimal of tasks during the winter. She is the best of companions given to talk when talk is needed and to give her subjects comfort when it is needed. I should know for I am the subject she picked as her favourite.
Another thing to remember about Princess, she doesn’t take no for an answer. The Princess is calling me even now I must go.
“Ouch. Her claws have come out to pierce me. It seems I forgot to feed the Princess on time and she wants to eat immediately. Forget what you’ve been told about cats, I don’t own Princess she owns me.”
292 words

it left out words so I re-posted.

They call her Princess and she rules her kingdom well. She is royalty and enjoys all that reigning entails. Oh you want to know more about the Princess?
She loves her servants to groom her hair, but she hates baths and prefers quick showers if in water at all. She is demanding but well loved by all her people. She bathes her dependents in adoration while demanding her wants and her needs. She makes sure her subjects are up at the crack of dawn so they can be laborious. With a flex of her eyebrow she silently makes her wishes known; other times she makes her wishes known with a variety of vocalizations that her vassals understand all too well.
The princess is a solitary hunter most productive and shares her bounty with her citizens. And yet her subjects dare not be late with her food, lest she retaliates and they find themselves not in her favour. Her sense of smell is acute and she shares this with her vassals. Princess loves the outdoors the sun most of all but hates the winter preferring to hibernate and do only the minimal of tasks during the winter. She is the best of companions given to talk when talk is needed and to give her subjects comfort when it is needed. I should know for I am the subject she picked as her favourite.
Another thing to remember about Princess, she doesn’t take no for an answer. The Princess is calling me even now I must go.
“Ouch. Her claws have come out to pierce me. It seems I forgot to feed the Princess on time and she wants to eat immediately. Forget what you’ve been told about cats, I don’t own Princess she owns me.”
293 words
@SweetSheil

Delusions of Grandeur
@michelawalters
133 words

They call her princess to her face, knowing she won’t accept anything less from her royal subjects. She allows them to cater to her every whim, bringing her food, drink and even escort her to the showers, where she is bathed beneath a cascade of hot spring warmed water.

She gets lonely in her ivory tower, with only her attendants to converse with, but it is better than no one at all. She dreams of gilded castles and jewels of every hue. Yet what she doesn’t know is that every week her mother comes to her room and asks those watching over her how she’s doing.

“Her delusions are worse this week. We’ll need to adjust her medication again,” the doctor whispers behind the iron door confining the princess to her padded cell.

They call her Princess and give her sweet candies to eat. Their intention is to be affectionate, but Lara can’t help wincing every time she hears Kaitlyn referred to as royalty. These people are dirt poor and isolated from any semblance of civilization—but they’ve never known the deprivations that the little girl they try to pamper has.

Kaitlyn would be happy here. Right? These people can give her a good life, free from Lady Martel. Right?

“Did I do something wrong?” Kaitlyn’s voice startles Lara.

“What?”

Kaitlyn’s little fist is balled in Lara’s skirt, her good left eye overflows with desperate apologies. Lara purchased crisp clean clothes and a fresh eye-patch for the little girl, admittedly out of this frontier family’s means.

“I promise I’ll do better! I’ll make up for whatever I did, just please don’t leave me here!”

“Kaitlyn,” Lara drops to her knees to look into Kaitlyn’s auburn eye. “You didn’t do anything wrong! But I have to think about what’s best for you. These people can give you a good life, and they’ll love you.”

Shaking her ash-brown curls violently Kaitlyn buries her face in Lara’s shoulder, hugging her tightly.

“I want to go with you! Don’t leave me behind!”

Lara strokes the trembling girl’s back firmly. At least she is up to a better weight for her height now; though who knew if either is normal for her age?

Carefully Lara works her words out around the knot in her throat, “Shhh… I know how you feel, but it’s too dangerous for you to come with me.”

“I don’t care! I love you, Lara!”

Her little friend’s words are true. Lara can feel Kaitlyn’s love filling her like the most wonderful spring of light. Kaitlyn has become Lara’s strength and her world—she would have never found the will to continue this hopeless war with God if it weren’t for this little girl who believes in her.

“I love you too, Kaitlyn.”


328 words
@DavidALudwig

“They call her Princess?” I clutched a hand to my side where the ‘Princess’ had dug her claws through. “She’s going to kill us all. The trees, the dryads, the entire grove.”

Lightning hot pain shot through me and the world went dark.

“I think I need a hospital. Or a field medic. Someone with morphine or grain alcohol on hand.” Someone who could convince my insides the outside world didn’t have much to offer. “Fucking hell, I should have stayed in my own world. What the hell kind of princess shares her ancestry with Wolverine?”

“Wolverine?”

“Short dude,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Hairy. Big claws.”

“I do not know the fellow.” Adrius shook his head. He scooped me up and lay me flat in the soft grass. His hands found the hole in my side and his voice was less steady when he said, “Circe—there’s so much blood.”

I don’t think he meant me to hear the last part, but I caught the hitch in his voice and my gaze snapped up to his too pale face.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t wimp out on me now,” I said. “It’s time to break out your big, bad druid self.”

“Why did she attack you?”

“She seems powerful possessive when it comes to you.”

His cheeks flushed slightly.

“And she thinks I’m your mate.”

His hands shook as he pressed down on the wound too hard. I hissed in response.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“It’s kinda funny,” I said on a pained exhalation. “I told you something along those lines. Seems you’re the odd man out on the disbelief train.”

“I do not understand, Circe.” He took a steadying breath and murmured something low and foreign. When he finished, his eyes glowed with power and the pain in my side receded. “You cannot be mine. My mate—she no longer knows me. The princess saw to that a dozen lives ago.”

“Wait a minute.” All the slot machine sevens lined up. “She wants you.”

“She did, yes.”

“So a princess staked a claim.”

“She has been called Princess as long as I’ve known her,” Adrius said. “To be honest, I think even she’s forgotten her name, but once upon a time her title meant something. And she was very powerful.”

“Not the kind of woman to cross.”

Adrius wouldn’t look me in the eye. “No. Decidedly not.”

“Now I know I should have stayed in my own world or dimension or whatever.”

Amber eyes found and held mine.

“No.”

One word, but in it a wealth of meaning. I placed my hand over his heart and watched the future we were meant to have stretch out before me. I wanted to ask if he believed, if having some crazed demon princess rip me apart made it real.

I climbed to my feet, pushing away the help Adrius offered.

“Circe—”

“Come find me if you ever believe,” I said. “Until then, I have a crazed princess to stop.”

@caramichaels
500 #WIP500 words

They call her Princess. And she acts like one too. A regal poise, a well-shaped body. She also rules the roost when she wants to, glowering at those who get in her way. It never is an easy thing to do but she also makes sure that anyone who newly arrives knows who the boss is. There isn’t a chance to really have anyone come up and push her off the pedestal.

It was her way or the highway and if no one liked it, well they were just going to have to deal. Princess had an easy five hundred pounds on the rest of the horses and she liked to bite to make them get away, especially if they were by the hay. All it took was pinned ears to try some prime spot and it was hers.

It helped to be a Belgian draft horse with hooves the size of a human’s head.

155 words
@solimond

So I did this wrong, and totally thought the prompt was the first two sentences on the page. :( I sort of half-ass corrected it.

They call her Princess.

We have a 130-lbs Rottweiler who wears a pink collar and sits with her paws crossed. Naturally, we call her Princess. Whether it's irony or simple observation, there can be great power in a name.

I wonder what that says about me.

Princess and I used to go on these long walks in the city. We’d start in the old bagel shop near the highway, I’d get some croissant or something and we’d leave Sausalito, cross the bridge and head to the marina. That alone is at least four or five miles to walk, but I really needed to get away from my family back then, not because they were bad or anything, but just because, for whatever reason, I needed to distance myself from my house, my dad, my mom, my brother, my sisters. So I walked with princess, and the walks were long because there wasn’t a whole lot else to do. I liked the feeling of the bay air, of crossing the barrier the water made, heading into something different from Sausalito, my hometown. Plus there’s the bridge. Walking on that bridge…well that’s something else entirely.

Anyone who’s been on the Golden Gate Bridge knows what I’m talking about. That bridge has a certain energy to it, something you feel inside you as you look at it from inside the city, or walk along its edge.

The feeling isn’t necessarily a good one, and that’s why it used to creep me out so much. The feeling is of peace, happiness, an internal song being sung that says for you to jump, to leave it all behind. The water below is nice, it says. Better than where you stand is where you could be swimming, it says. I don’t think I’m the only one who noticed that feeling, and Princess, being the good little baby that she is, would always be anxious to cross, tugging me as if the bridge wasn’t a million tons of steel, but the rickety planks of a drawbridge near collapse. I think she knew somehow, that I wanted to jump.

This one time, on a summer Saturday when Princess and I were yet again heading out across the bridge, I saw a man jump. It was really early in the morning, and I think him and I were the only pedestrians on it. He was probably there for several minutes before doing it, the way I saw him standing there, looking into the water below, that looked so still when seen from the bridge, but so violent in reality. He’d, as if a consensus had been reached, lifted his right leg over the railing, then his left, and then he’d let go.

Nobody but me was around to see it in that dense fog, and nobody would ever know what I knew.

He was smiling when he hit the water.